Building Your Practice
I was having dinner with a friend of mine the other day. He is a very accomplished trial attorney that’s been practicing for 28 years and has had some major jury verdicts. We were talking about practice development. I told him about what I had been working on with business coaching, the blog, and a few other web based projects I have in the works.
He told me “Dave. Forget about the blog. Forget about coaching. Forget about the internet projects. Just focus on your cases. Take your biggest case and hit it hard, work the stuffing out of it. Or, take your highest profile case. A case where maybe there’s not that much money in, but if you do well, you’ll get recognition for. Or if you don’t have a high dollar or high profile case, take a little case and work it so hard that your life depends on it. Your clients will appreciate it, and if you do this on a consistent basis, you’ll start getting the big cases.”
Was he right? Yes and no. (There’s a lawyer answer for you). I think if you had to choose absolutely between one and the other, I would pick good lawyering skills over practice development and marketing. But good trial skills alone won’t get you as far if you don’t mix it with practice development. And if you can’t run a good office and keep good staff, all the trial skills in the world won’t help.
The old model of the best cases being referred to the most experienced trial attorneys is changing. People are using the internet for travel arrangements, to check the weather and shop. They’re also using the internet to look for lawyers. If you don’t have an internet presence, people can’t find you. It doesn’t matter how good you are in the courtroom if you don’t get the client in the first place.
Right. We have always said that you have to do two things: (1) do a great job for the client and (2) create the perception that you have done a great job for the client. You cannot have one without the other and still be successful.
I disagree with the notion of just working the one big case, particuarly the high profile case. I've had a lot of high profile cases that have gotten a lot of media attention. http://www.millerandzois.com/news.html But I have gotten a lot more business by doing a good job for some random person who liked the work we did and told a lot of people about it.
Ron Miller
www.millerandzois.com
Ron Miller
www.millerandzois.com
